Posted
by
Soulskillon Friday January 24, 2014 @12:40PM
from the reports-of-their-demise-etc. dept.

jones_supa sends this AFP report:
"Microsoft soared to record revenues in the last quarter, confounding Wall Street forecasts on the back of strong demand for Xbox consoles, Surface tablets and Internet cloud services. The U.S.-based technology titan reported net income of $6.56 billion on revenue that hit a record high of $24.52 billion in the quarter that ended December 31. ... Sales of Surface tablets more than doubled from the previous quarter to hit $893 million, and Microsoft sold 7.4 million Xbox videogame consoles, with 3.9 million of those being new-generation Xbox One.
Bing's share of the Internet search market grew to 18.2 percent while its share of the online search ad market grew about a third, according to Microsoft. Meanwhile, money made from selling Windows software to computer makers slid by three percent due to continue soft demand by consumers for personal computers, according to Microsoft."

Hope they don't announce big profit now and come back a few months later with a big charge for something else. Sort of like Bush would not include war costs in regular budget and always ask for emergency appropriations for a war that had been going on for years.

I'm a.NET developer so I'm a Fanboy because nothing else comes close for enterprise development.

You're fanboy for the wrong reasons. Microsoft is the classic bully. They take a standard and change it enough to be a pain in the ass for everyone else to integrate with. Then you have to explain to management that MS is doing something a little different that causes problems. Inevitably, a fanboy like yourself will pipe up and say that if everything were Microsoft, we wouldn't have this problem, when in fact because things are Microsoft, we have the problem.

I'm not trying to be a jerk, but my experience is that most people who program using MS tools are clueless. Not because their stupid, but because Microsoft makes all the decisions for them. Web services aren't a good idea until MS came out with the VS Web Service Wizard.

It's really just a touchscreen laptop with a crappy keyboard. Yes, it's more functional than most tablets, but there are more powerful laptops about the same size and weight with better performance, etc. They're pretty much functionally equivalent,aren't they?

Technically speaking, the surface pro doesn't come with a keyboard at all. You're probably thinking of the "touch" and "type" covers that are sold. I don't care for either. This is pretty much the same story for every other tablet I've seen for sale. Specifications wise, it is almost identical to my HP Elitebook 8470p laptop.

I added a Logitech Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. It does come with an excellent pen, which I use for taking notes in meetings.Not a good replacement for my desktop computer, but it does quite well in most situations where a laptop would be used. The only exception I've found is on airplanes. Need a keyboard with an attachment stiff enough to support the screen. I imagine you'd have the same problem in a car, but I'm rarely in a car if I'm not the one driving it.

If you're comfortable disassembling with a heat gun you can upgrade the SSD. It's mSATA I think. The ram is soldered on and there is no room for upgrading unfortunately. In my opinion, only 4GB of ram is this device's biggest weakness.

I actually think they're cooking the books. I'm sure they're just moving numbers around to make their revenue stream seem larger after having a disastrous year and are hoping to make up for it next year. Big companies do it all the time. Besides revenue is a poor way to gage a company, they could have 24 billion in revenue and 50 billion in liabilities, or they might have to write off a few billion in "estimated revenues" later, like they did with the original surface.

Of the hundres of people I know, very few profess to buying a surface (pro or RT). My older sister received an RT as a gift and returned it because it was crap. I actually told her she had an RT and she might want to try out the surface pro, but she ended up with a Galaxy Tab. I've asked over a dozen of my gamer friends and only one bought an XBOne. No one wanted one sitting in their living room staring at them all the time. Some went with the PS4 most decided to skip this gen. So I find it very hard to believe either of those products are doing as well as MS claims. Along with that MS has already pulled a similar stunt when they overstated how popular the first surface was and then had to backtrack and say they'd written off over a billion dollars worth.